The bedroom was small, barely enough space for the single bed that took up most of it. A young guy lay under a plain white sheet, still asleep. Open curtains let in a strange red light from the window, turning the whole room the color of spilled blood because of the crimson moon hanging outside.
The guy on the bed shifted slightly, and his eyes cracked open.
Jake blinked hard. The light felt completely wrong. Back home, streetlights gave off a dull orange-white glow through his blinds. This was deep, unnatural red, thick and heavy, like the sky itself was bleeding.
'What the hell is this?'
He sat up quickly, the sheet sliding down to his lap. His arms looked thinner than they should have been, the hands smoother, almost delicate. He rubbed his face roughly and swung his legs off the bed.
Bare feet touched cold floorboards. Three quick steps took him to the window.
Outside, a massive full moon dominated the night sky, glowing an intense crimson. Below it stretched rows of rooftops with steep gables and chimneys trailing faint smoke even at this hour, while gas lamps flickered along narrow, twisting streets. None of it looked like Mumbai. None of it looked like any place on the Earth he knew.
His stomach lurched, but strangely, a small part of his mind whispered that the red moon was normal here, just part of how things were.
He yanked the window shut with a sharp click, and the room plunged into darkness.
His hand moved almost on its own, reaching along the wall until his fingers found a small brass valve nestled among some exposed steam pipes. He twisted it instinctively. There was a soft hiss, then warm yellowish light bloomed from the gas lamp hanging above the bed. The flame steadied, spreading a gentle glow across the plain wooden walls.
The room was simple and ordinary: just the bed, a narrow table with drawers and a chair pushed against it, shelves built right into the wall and packed with books. Nothing else.
Jake walked over to the table and dropped into the chair. His eyes drifted across the books on the shelves. The titles were written in a strange script, but somehow he could read them as easily as English.
'History of the Fourth Epoch.'
'General Knowledge of the Loen Kingdom.'
'The Fifth Epoch: The Modern Age.'
His throat tightened.
He reached for the last one, flipped it open, and started skimming the pages. It didn't feel like reading new words. It felt more like memories rising up—names and events he already knew deep down. Emperor Roselle Gustav. The War of the Four Emperors. The explosion of steam power and machinery across the continent. The seven orthodox churches holding everything together.
He stopped abruptly. The book slipped from his fingers and landed on the table with a quiet thud.
"Wait a second," he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. "This is… this is straight out of 'Lord of the Mysteries'."
Pathways. Sequences. Beyonders who drank potions and risked madness with every step up the ladder.
He let out a short, shaky laugh that didn't sound amused at all.
"No way. There's no freaking way this is happening."
He pulled open the drawer under the table. Inside were a silver pocket watch without a chain, a few loose coins, and a small stack of folded papers. He grabbed the one that looked most official—stiff cream paper with an embossed stamp—and held it up to the lamplight.
Identity Certificate
Name: Jace Liebert
Date of Birth: 15th Day of Windmonth, Year 1329
Residence: 17 Crimson Lane, Cherwood Borough, Backlund, Loen Kingdom
Jake did the math quickly in his head. 1329 plus sixteen years made Jace about sixteen and a half right now. That lined up with the body he was wearing: a smart kid who'd finished high school early, taught little children at a school run by the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, did bookkeeping at a library on the side, and sometimes waited tables at rich people's parties to make extra money. The kid who planned to start medical school at eighteen so he wouldn't be the youngest one in class again.
Jake leaned back in the chair and pressed both hands to his face.
"Okay. Okay. So I'm Jake—eighteen, first-year med student, cramming anatomy at 2 a.m., living on instant noodles and bad coffee. And now I'm also Jace Liebert, stuck in his body in the middle of Backlund."
He exhaled slowly, trying to keep his breathing steady.
The red moon. The gas lamp. The books. The name on the certificate.
Everything matched the novel he'd read obsessively back home.
His pulse picked up again.
"If this is really the world of 'Lord of the Mysteries'… then maybe the gray fog thing is real too. The ritual."
He remembered every line of it clearly: the Luck Enhancement Ritual the main character had stumbled into on Earth. Four steps counterclockwise. Four strange honorifics. And then… the door to something ancient and impossible.
Jake stood up so fast the chair scraped against the floor. He shoved the table aside to clear a small space in the center of the room.
He rummaged in the tiny cupboard and found half a loaf of bread. He tore it into four rough pieces and placed one in each corner.
Then he stepped into the middle of the square he'd made.
'This is completely insane. I'm going to feel like the biggest idiot alive in about ten seconds.'
But he did it anyway.
First step, counterclockwise.
"The Immortal Lord of Heaven and Earth for Blessings," he said, keeping his voice low.
Second step.
"The Sky Lord of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
Third.
"The Exalted Thearch of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
He completed the fourth step and returned to the center.
He swallowed hard.
"The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
Silence.
The gas lamp flickered once, weakly, then steadied again.
That was all.
No rolling gray fog. No massive door appearing in the air. No sudden pull upward into another world.
Just four pieces of bread on the floor, a quiet room, and Jake standing there feeling like he'd just made a complete fool of himself.
He let his arms fall to his sides.
"…Of course it didn't work."
He rubbed the back of his neck and gave a tired half-smile.
"I'm not him. I'm not the guy who got yanked here by the Celestial Worthy himself. I'm just some random med student who somehow ended up in the wrong damn world."
He glanced toward the window. The crimson moon was still visible around the edge of the curtain.
The pocket watch on the table showed 6:12.
Dawn would come soon.
And he had absolutely no idea what to do next.